LNCI at Work: Nature and Culture in a Program for Immigrant Youth
Cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon: these plants may not figure prominently in many Chicago Wilderness residents' gardens, but they did occupy front-and-center seats in a program of the Indo-American Center of Chicago that connected immigrant youth with the soils and natural resources of their new home. The program took place over the summer and involved 15 children recently arrived in the U.S. in an intergenerational effort to foster a sense of community, a sense of place, and a sense of pride among the residents of Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood.
The Indo-American Center, which provides immigration, adult literacy, after-school tutoring, and other services to South Asian immigrants, was looking for culturally-relevant ways of connecting immigrant youth with the neighborhood's green spaces. The intergenerational gardening project proved to fill that need with fun and learning: community elders instructed the youth in the medicinal and traditional uses of South Asian plants while teaching them how to play outdoor games of South Asian origin. At the same time, all of the participants worked side by side to beautify their neighborhood by planting hearty perennials on street corners and other public spaces.
The program was made possible in part by a grant from Chicago Wilderness to the Chicago Cultural Alliance -- a consortium of Chicago's ethnic museums and cultural centers -- with assistance from the West Ridge Garden Club and the North Side Alliance. Ritwik Banerji, the Indo-American Center's Youth Program Coordinator, believes that "sowing seeds" had both a metaphoric and a literal meaning in the case of this program, as the activities helped to counter the feeling of rootlessness held by many immigrant children. Mr. Banerji hopes to offer the program again next summer and is currently searching for potential garden plots in the community as well as a Master Gardener willing to help with the project. For more information, you can contact Mr. Banerji at 773-973-4444 or rbanerji@indoamerican.org.
Website: http://www.chicagowilderness.org |
